"Miracle" operation has boy shouting for joy

WHEN Patrick Rowan (6 1/2) experienced sound for the first time last week as the result of a "miracle" operation, the Laois Nationalist described his reaction.

"He shouted for five minutes non stop just to hear the sound of his voice. Then he took to banging the table and running up and down the hospital corridor to hear his foot steps. It was brilliant . . ."

Doctors at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, had performed the first cochlear implant in the Republic on Patrick, after opening a special unit for the procedure.

Also celebrating were two Garda detectives, whose "double bust" made the Longford Leader's front page. The detectives were on their way to the Four Courts in Dublin to assist in the conviction of a rural crime gang when they stumbled upon and helped to foil a bank raid in Finglas.

"The Doc walks out in protest", said the Tipperary Star. "Sexually insulting and most offensive writing" on the wall of the Cashel Urban Council meeting room provoked Dr Sean McCarthy, a GP and former minister, into walking out of a council meeting. The council had been meeting in an old vocational school building.

They were discussing petty crime when Dr McCarthy staged his protest. "The town's city fathers should not have to tolerate the behaviour of the mischievous person who wrote the message", he told the Star. "There's a lot to be said for a liberal society, but this is a liberal society gone mad.

The Don%gal Democrat reported the outcome of a case in which a 14 year old boy pleaded guilty to having sexual intercourse with a nine year old girl in a tent pitched on a local football field. Letterkenny Circuit Court "heard that the boy had unlawful carnal knowledge of the girl when `horseplay' among a number of youngsters got out of hand," it said.

"Describing it as an `unfortunate case', Judge Matt Deery accepted that there had been a certain amount of horseplay which had escalated into something much more serious. He adjourned the case for a year and directed that the defendant's behaviour be monitored during that period."

A man caught singing "Carry on Regardless" in full voice outside Lifford Hospital while his nephew "bled profusely" was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, the Democrat also reported. He had been charged with smearing blood on a door and wall of the hospital, breach of the peace and being intoxicated.

At University College Hospital in Galway, the casualty department was indeed being forced to "carry on regardless". The Connacht Tribune reported that on Thursday morning overcrowding was such that a patient was having a minor operation performed on his foot while seated on a hair, and patients lay on trolleys in passageways and offices (the highest number of patients thus accommodated during any one night is 28).

A patient with chest pains lay on a stretcher between two ambulance attendants because there was nowhere else to put him. Nurses were attempting to keep the door closed because a cold draught blew in each time another member of the public came into casualty.

Earlier in the week, the West Galway deputy, Mr Bobby Molloy, had been ordered out of the Dail for three days after persisting in raising conditions in the hospital.

Aughinish Alumina's new managing director, Ms Cynthia Carroll, is the "first woman boss of an alumina plant anywhere in the world", the Limerick Leader told us, adding that she was Harvard educated and a "39 year old mother of two".

Picturing her in her hard hat and goggles, the Leader added the caption: "Cynthia Carroll ... never worked in anything but a male dominated environment."

Ms Carroll went ahead with her press briefing even though her father had died in New York the night before. She told journalists - she was "absolutely confident" that nothing emanating from the plant was causing animal deaths in the area.

Commenting on Ms Carroll's media "debut", the Limerick Leader's editor wrote: "It would be unwise to view her tenure solely in terms of gender. It would also be unfair. She has succeeded in her career not because she is a woman but because she is damned good at her job." It was an interesting comment, considering how dominant the gender issue was in the Leader's own news feature on its subject.

The Roscommon Herald did not get the joke when Martyn Turner's cartoon showing a sign with the words "Castlerea Welcomes Hardened Criminals" appeared in The Irish Times last Tuesday. But maybe it should think again, if the experience of Portlaoise is anything to go by. The Leinster Express reported that prisoners on temporary release from Portlaoise were using the railway station as a staging post for channelling stolen goods. "To add insult to injury, both prisoners were availing of free train transport provided by the Department of Justice to assist them in making their getaway from the scene."